So if I understand in past nurse gone to school for 4 years and got certification it was very focus driven of science of body and nursing and now they don’t want a certification but Bachelor’s Degree that less focus driven but more broad knowledge.
Because most universities than the Bachelor’s is nothing it only when you get your Master or PHD is where it is more focus. That is why kids that get Bachelor’s on any subject not just nursing knows little bit of every thing but does not know the subject enough. Where it is only to you get Master or PHD to you really start know your stuff.
I’m not an RN, but I’m in a family of RNs. Around here, two year RNs have been pretty lost for 20 years - its hard for them to compete with 4 year RNs.
RNs make a lot of spur of the moment decisions. They may not prescribe or diagnose, but they’d better have the background to review the assessment and say “we need to get the doctor in here.” Especially in hospitals, especially in critical care, surgical recovery and the ER.
There is a push to nurse practitioners for primary care - my kids “pediatrician” and my “doctor” are both master’s degree nurses.
My brother in law is a CRNA in rural anesthetisa. He prescribes within his field and has no anesthetist supervision. My sister is a nursing administrator with a Masters, which means she doesn’t do patient care, she is third in charge at a hospital.
I’m a bit confused by this post. There is a difference between the various nurse certifications, licenses, and accreditations, and the degree granted by (university, college, community college, etc.). The 4 year degree for nurses is typically a Bachelor of Science in Nursing, which, unlike other majors, is very focus driven and clinical. The associate’s degree in nursing is supposed to be the 2 year counterpart, but some programs have pre-requisites that make it a 3 or 4 year degree before being admitted to the program. This makes it less desirable than getting into the bachelor’s program (similar time given to a “lesser” degree).
Many colleges/universities that offer the nursing degrees also offer accelerated programs for people who already have an associate’s or bachelor’s degree in another area that is not nursing.
A PhD in nursing is possible, but very rare, and so far I’ve only seen those for nurses who want to teach other nurses. A master’s is the nursing equivalent of a specialty, and with that degree they can get certified for becoming a nurse practitioner, which can stand-in for many “primary doctors”.
In general, in my own personal experience, nurses are poor students with no interest in the classic well-rounded college curriculum. While I admire their lazer-like focus on their goal, actual learning in non-nursing courses takes a backseat to grade chasing and grade grubbing. I can’t count how many nursing students tell me, “I need an A. My GPA must be ____.”
“That’s nice, but grades follow success in my course, and success comes from demonstrating that you’ve learned the core concepts. The good news is that you’ll find it’s all very fair and achievable. Don’t tell me what you need; earn it.”
So, I’m all for this development. Every professional should strive to be more worldly and not simply possess only the exact skill set for a career.
Okay I tried to explain it but may be I did a bad job. I’m sure others here can explain the colleges and universities thing better.
A certification is very focus driven where a bachelor’s degree is not . If you go to school getting certification in computer programming it be very focus driven where bachelor’s degree is not , you take bit of programming ,hardware ,software and networking so on.
That say you want a bachelor’s degree in sociology you will have take other subjects like women studies ,philosophy and civics so on. Likewise if you want a bachelor’s degree in women studies you take liberal arts studies , philosophy so on. It not to you get to your master or PHD to it starts to be very focus drive.
Any bachelor’s degree is very broad you will not know enough about the subject it only to you get to your master or PHD to you really start to understand the work.
A bachelor’s degree is too basic and too broad and you learn a lot of extra studies that have nothing to so with your master or PHD.Sure the kids will have exposure , but they will not know enough about it to write book on it or talk about .It is like physicist doing is time getting his bachelor’s he will take biology , chemistry and life science but his master or PHD will be very very focus on physics.
If a nurse takes bachelor’s degree that be extra studies may be in things like not just human body chemistry but chemistry in world , not just human biology but animal biology , may be even life science a bit of physics.
This what I mean how will this help the patient or be good nurse? On less it like the poster said above Bachelor of Science in Nursing than bachelor’s degree where Bachelor of Science in Nursing will be more focus on human body chemistry ,human body biology ,medicine and nursing.
I think nurses have evolved in work they do now.
Here in pre med nurse test of the math alone .
No high school kid will understand 5% of this math . In past it was probably the doctor that did this math work to tell nurse what to do.
sweat209, I’m not sure where you’re from, what your native language is or what the training and job duties of nurses where you live is, but you’ve been wrong, and continue to be wrong, about just about everything you post. I think. It’s very hard to understand your writing, but I think that there’s a language barrier here. So I’m working hard at trying to figure out what you’re trying to say, and you’re still wrong.
A Bachelor’s of Science in Nursing is not “broader” than the Associate of Applied Science. It has all of the same requirements, plus more - and those more are all in nursing and/or human sciences or closely relevant fields. Pharmacology, Community Nursing, Statistics and some more clinical hours working directly with patients are common classes needed for a Bachelor’s but optional or not offered for an Associate’s. Of course they will vary by school, but that’s at least what’s common in the many nursing schools around me.
AAS nurses need to take English Writing and Communication something from Humanities and math that’s at least College Algebra. So do BS nurses. The “broad” non-nursing curriculum is required of both types of nursing programs.
That math is dead simple, and absolutely something that every nurse needs to know how to do, Associate’s nurse or Bachelor’s nurse. It *is *covered in high school algebra, but it will be covered again in College Algebra. Within the nursing program itself, Dimensional Analysis is a popular alternate method taught to figure out those types of problems. I tend to prefer Dimensional Analysis, but once in a while I get stuck, and revert to my old algebra skills.
No, doctors do NOT “figure out the math” for nurses, and they never have. That’s part of a nurse’s job. The doctor tells the nurse the dose and the pharmacy sends the medicine, and the nurse figures out how to give the appropriate dose based on what she’s gotten from the pharmacy. There’s actually a bit LESS math required than in the past, now that so many hospitals use computerized systems and send up accurate individual doses. But a nurse is still responsible for checking the pharmacy’s work, knowing when a doctor orders a dose that’s unreasonable or unsafe, and administering only safe, correct doses of medication. And you do still run into math you have to do yourself from scratch, especially in Pediatric nursing.
Nurses are not doctors’ servants. We’re not waitresses. We’re not handmaidens. We’re not your mom. We’re skilled, educated professionals who are part of your health care team, with our own education, assessments, diagnoses, care plans, interventions and skills. We work WITH doctors. We do not work FOR doctors.
You should have said that before it was Bachelor’s of Science in Nursing not Bachelor’s degree .
Okay I got it now 
o it not like going to school and just taking Bachelor’s degree in what ever it is very focus driven.
I think it hard for one to understand the work and complexity of nursing with out looking at textbook they are given , going to school or job shadowing at hospital.
The public perception or my be my perception may be 50 or 100 years ago nurse have done .
You said math is easy ? I can tell you no high school kid can do 5% of that . I will go to store and most kids can’t do basic elementary math most kids in my class don’t know the multiplication table and struggle with 7 grade math.
You right going to college or university the English has to be at college or university level!! Well 7 grade English may be okay for chat room , message board and every day stuff ( I know I’m at no 7 grade English) but most jobs will not take you on and no college or university will give good marks if the English is not at college or university level.
When I was in high school most kids where not at high school level with math and English many where really bad and struggle with 7 grade .
Anyways I think we are getting bit off topic now.
@Ca3799: What state do you live in? For salary information, can i trust these websites Indeed & LVN Salary Can you please give me some advice on being a nurse (LVN)? Thank.
I’m in Texas.
I only checked the LVN salary site and those figures look accurate to me.
Another good site for income and other information is “ONet”. It might be Onet dot gov.
There aren’t even specific definitions of each. It’s just some stupid distinction **esmeralda2 **has decided is what everyone has to use. But luckily none of us have to listen to esmeralda2
If anything the formal definition of college in the U.S. is that a college is a constituent part of a university. As in the College of Nursing at New York University. But hundreds of smaller institutions of higher education named themselves colleges, and everyone understands it perfectly fine, so we don’t stick to the formal definition. We “go to college” in America, even if we’re attending Harvard University.
There’s no reason to glibly pretend there’s a specific definition everyone has to use, and if there were, **esmeralda2 **would have been dead wrong about what that definition is.
Health care professionals of all types have to do continuing education to stay licensed. I’m licensed in 3 states, and have to do 30 hours in each one, although fortunately I can use those 30 hours for all of them. Some states have other requirements, usually concerning law or specific diseases.
Hospitals have been trying to eliminate LPNs for at least 15 years that I know of, and they usually change their mind when they realize how many of their best people will have to go. An LPN can do pretty much everything an RN does except give blood transfusions, take verbal orders from a doctor over the telephone, and give certain medications (chemotherapy is one example) unless they have been certified.
Around here, a CNA certificate program lasts about 8 weeks, and you can’t call yourself a CNA unless you’ve taken that class.
Sweat209, I hope that you are a non-native English speaker, and not just a poor writer.
I personally know someone who has a BSN and is working on an APRN degree, and she is a lifelong English speaker and her Facebook posts are more poorly written than Sweat209’s posts. :eek: She also seems to believe everything she sees on Faux Nooze, so go figure.
Do what? I think you may need to research what an RN does a little bit more before you paint with such a broad brush. I’m currently getting my BSN, and as an RN, I will be doing all of the above and more.
As for the education involved, I’m all for it. Being an older male nursing student, I find the required courses such as microbiology, and chem to be fascinating. Such courses are vital in preparing one for the modern nursing field. And those are just the pre-nursing courses. The core nursing courses even include such offerings as pharmacology.
Granted, not all BSN programs require such high standards (in fact there are community colleges here that do not require them). But, I thought to myself “if I’m going to do this, I might as well do it all the way - at a university” as to be fully prepared.
As a pre-nursing student at the university I attend, the majority of our coursework, surprisingly, is identical to those in pre-med.
I personally feel that there should be a standardized education path for RNs. All new RN’s should be required to have a BSN, in my opinion. But, with that being said, current practicing RN’s should be “grandfathered in” who don’t meet that requirement.
ASN programs should be phased out, entirely.
Too many students have the mindset right now that if they somehow fail in obtaining their BSN, they can simply and easily obtain their ASN - ergo, drastically reducing the quality of RN’s in the workforce. The way I see it, if you cannot cut the mustard in a BSN program, perhaps nursing isn’t the right choice for you.
Sorry for my rant. It just gets to me how some still believe in the stereotype that nurses just push meds and wipe butts. Or for that matter, that only women can be (or should be) nurses.
She can share a room with the one I know who has a BSN and working on an NP degree and basically rejects a lot of medical stuff, including vaccines, to the point of posting a complain on FB because she was told to wear a mask at work (since she refused the flu vaccine during flu high season).
Maybe I can help. I am a tech in an ER. I have my CNA certificate (Certified Nursing Assistant), a CMA license (Certified Medical Assistant), and an EMT certificate (Emergency Medical Technician).
I can draw blood, start IVs, check blood glucose levels, change dressings, insert foleys and do EKGs. We don’t do baths or feed people in the ER, but I know on other floors, the techs assist the nurses with that kind of thing.
I should add, my hospital only hires RNs with a BSN. They don’t even hire LPNs at all.
The hospital also provides tuition reimbursement, so a lot of them will come here to work, and let the hospital pay for their Master’s degree.